Theodore Parker

Theodore Parker 1810-60, American theologian and social reformer, b. Lexington, Mass. He graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1836 and was pastor (1837-46) of the Spring Street Unitarian Church, West Roxbury, Mass. The liberalism that he presented in Boston in 1841 and amplified in his scholarly Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion (1842) was then so radical that the Boston Unitarian clergy withdrew from him, although he remained a member of their association. He was one of the transcendentalists, contributed to the Dial, and edited (1847-50) the Massachusetts Quarterly Review. In 1845 he became preacher of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society of Boston. His congregation grew to 7,000. In addition he lectured at lyceums throughout the country and was a leader in antislavery and other reform activities. In 1859 ill health forced him to retire, and he died in Florence. After his death Parker's works were widely read, and his once radical views gained acceptance. The best edition of his works is the Centenary (15 vol., 1907-13).

Bibliography: See J. Weiss, The Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker (1864, repr. 1969); biographies by O. B. Frothingham (1874) and H. S. Commager (1936, repr. 1960); J. W. Chadwick, Theodore Parker, Preacher and Reformer (1900, repr. 1971); J. E. Dirks, The Critical Theology of Theodore Parker (1948, repr. 1970).

Parker, Theodore (1810–60), American Unitarian preacher. In his Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion (1842) he argued that the permanent essence of Christianity was the moral influence of Jesus and that belief in miracles was unnecessary.

Parker, Theodore (1810–60), born at Lexington, Mass., early showed a precocious ability at scholarship, although poverty limited his schooling. From the age of 17 until he was 21, he taught at district schools, and then, after passing the Harvard entrance examination, being too poor to enroll, received special credit and graduated from the Divinity School (1836). He became a Unitarian clergyman in a Boston suburb (1837). Increasingly dependent upon the direct intuition of an Absolute Being, he turned away from the belief in miraculous revelation. In agreement with such liberal thinkers as Channing, Emerson, Alcott, Ripley, and Wendell Phillips, who were his friends, he developed his intuitive religious beliefs into a system, expressed in The … Question Between Mr. Andrews Norton and His Alumni… (1839), written under the pseudonym Levi Blodgett, and a sermon on The Transient and Permanent in Christianity (1841). Having become a Transcendentalist, he was ostracized by the orthodox Unitarian circles, and only enabled to deliver the lectures printed as A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion (1842) when laymen invited him to Boston. After a trip to Europe (1843–44), he still found Boston churches closed to him. When he was finally installed as minister of a new Congregational Society of Boston, he devoted his pulpit not only to religious education but to the discussion of problems of war, slavery, temperance, women's rights, and other reforms, in the belief that social wrongs would be cured when men attained consciousness of the infinite perfection of God. Outside the church, he made passionate speeches against slavery, aided New England emigrants to Kansas in the struggle that followed the passage of the Kansas‐Nebraska bill, abetted John Brown, was active in attempts to rescue fugitive slaves, and wrote such works as his Letters … Touching the Matter of Slavery (1848). His strenuous public life came to an end through exhaustion and illness (1859). In an attempt to regain his health, he went to Italy, where he died. His Works was published in 15 volumes (1907–13).